


I Can't Leave You

by MagicMagpie



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: And I wanted to see it so I wrote it, And about craving physical pain to cope with the emotional pain, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, I mean it's Akechi's death and this is set in Royal, I wrote this at like 5AM, Just P5R engine room spoilers, Kinda, M/M, Not beta-read, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, So you get to decide how dead he is!, Someone on Twitter just tweeted about Ren having a breakdown in the engine room, Sort Of, The ending's somewhat hopeful, There are a couple of sentences about not caring about dying, There's some wall-punching, Well a lot of hurt, and some comfort, it gets a bit intense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27762847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicMagpie/pseuds/MagicMagpie
Summary: The low hum of machinery filled the room. Cogs whirred. Pipes clanged. Whispers and murmurs. A few raised voices, a hand on his shoulder, a hand in his.Ren stared at the shutter door.He's normally very good at controlling his emotions. Hehasto be. He's the leader of the Phantom Thieves, the one everyone looks to for guidance and strength.In the engine room, after the boy he loved left his life forever, he wasn't the infallible Joker. He was just Ren Amamiya.Just another broken boy.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Kudos: 100





	I Can't Leave You

**Author's Note:**

> Do mind the tags! Idk if this needs certain elements tagging, but I tried to cover all my bases. If you think this needs a certain tag then do tell me!

The low hum of machinery filled the room. Cogs whirred. Pipes clanged. Whispers and murmurs. A few raised voices, a hand on his shoulder, a hand in his.

Ren stared at the shutter door.

Nothing felt real. The gunshots had rung out, Akechi’s signal had gone. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real.

Ren stared at the shutter door.

A tug on his hand. How could it be real? Akechi wouldn’t die on him. Not like this. Akechi wouldn’t leave him like this. Akechi wouldn’t leave him hollow. Ready to shatter.

Ren stared at the shutter door.

Someone squeezed his hand. It burned. It hurt. He pulled away. The voices became more insistent, more urgent, but why would he _care_ it wasn’t _Akechi_ because _Akechi_ was behind that _fucking door_ and –

“Ren!”

“ _WHAT_?” He yelled, whirling round, away from them all. They all looked so _concerned_ and he _hated it_ _he didn’t need concern he needed that fucking door opened_.

“Ren, we need to go,” Ann said, reaching her hand out towards him.

“We need to break this door,” he said, ignoring her. “Oracle, analyse its weaknesses.”

“I-it’s not an enemy, I can’t do that!”

White-hot anger spiked through him. He clenched his fists, grit his teeth. _It’s not her fault it’s not her fault it’s not her fault_.

Cognitive Akechi’s cruel grin flashed in his mind.

“Full assault,” he snarled. Someone said his name, a hand rested on his shoulder and he shrugged it off. “ _We’re breaking this door._ ”

Akechi couldn’t be gone.

He pulled his mask off his face – he wished it would bleed again, he wanted it to _hurt_ – and revelled in the power that filled him after he’d been carved empty.

“Arséne, _destroy it_.”

All his rage, his anger and his hatred at this door, Cognitive Akechi, Shido, _everything_ , he threw it all into destroying this _stupid fucking door_ , Eigaon after Eigaon, Riot Gun, Deathbound, Megidolaon, _and it still wouldn’t fucking break_ , he snarled as he summoned every other Persona in his head, directed _every single skill he had_ , and it _fucking hurt like he’d been stabbed_ but it felt _good_ , he’d break this door or he’d die trying, _Akechi was behind there and he’d be damned if he was going to leave the boy he loved behind_ _and the door still wasn’t fucking broken_ he launched himself and slammed his fists into it and _yelled_ it tore at his throat and his gloves darkened with blood but he didn’t _care_ he _wanted_ to hurt it was better than this _pain_ this _guilt_ this _overpowering grief he hated it hated it hated it hated hated hated_

 _“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME_!”

He sank.

He’d failed. Akechi was still behind that door.

Akechi was dead.

“Ren...”

Akechi’s body was going to rot here.

“You guys can go.”

He’d rot here too.

“You know we can’t.”

Someone sat next to him. Red outfit. Ann.

“Don’t heal me.”

“Y-your health and energy are really low.” Futaba.

He didn’t really care.

“I’m so sorry, Ren...”

It wouldn’t be that bad to die here, really. At least he’d stop feeling.

“Akechi... meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”

He was so tired. Akechi had abandoned him after the casino and left loneliness in his wake. He’d seen Akechi’s face before their fight and his first feeling had been _happiness_. His last glimpse of Akechi was seeing him be hidden by the shutter door. Their last conversation was a reminder of a promise he was struggling to believe in.

“You should go,” he croaked. His vision blurred.

“Not without you,” Ann said.

“We _do_ need to go,” he heard Makoto say. “They might send shadows down here to investigate.”

 _Let them come_ , he thought.

“Queen’s right, no doubt Shido will figure out what happened when Cognitive Akechi doesn’t return, it’s dangerous,” Morgana said.

Would the real Shido figure out what happened when Akechi doesn’t return? He doubted it.

“Ren,” Ann lowered her voice, “we need to go. He – you made a promise to him. To take down Shido. You can’t... you can’t do that if you’re dead, Ren.”

His lower lip trembled.

“I can’t leave him here,” he whispered.

“You know he’d want you to save yourself,” Ann said, resting her hand on his. “If you stay here, Shido wins.”

_Let’s make a deal, okay? You won’t say no, will you?_

_Change Shido’s heart... in my stead..._

_End his crimes... please!_

“I promised him,” Ren said quietly. “I can’t... break that promise.”

Ann stroked his hand with her thumb, careful not to touch the bloodstained parts. “He’d be proud of you.”

Ren wasn’t sure how true that was. He found it more likely that Akechi would get irritated at him for getting emotional over his death. He laughed a little. Akechi would _kill_ him if he knew he’d come close to letting Shido win.

Shido winning was something he would _never_ allow. That bastard was going down, and after they beat him into submission Ren would spit on his pathetic, snivelling shadow. Give him a taste of how he’d treated his _own fucking son_.

“Mona, could you heal me, or are you too drained?”

“I can do it!” He said, running over and casting a Salvation on him. He missed the pain, but it would only hinder him.

“Oracle, pass me the medicine bag.”

She handed it over and he fished out a flask of coffee and downed it, feeling like he’d splashed his face with ice-cold water. After a minute he stood up, jaw set and resolution firm.

“I’m ready to go. We’ll head back to a safe room and go from there.”

The rest of the Thieves filed out, shooting him tentative smiles laced with sympathy.

“Joker?” Makoto called from the stairs.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, just hang tight,” he replied, then turned back to the door. He placed his palm on it, rested his forehead on it. The cold metal tried to sap him of his warmth, but Ren held a promise in his heart, keeping it ablaze.

“I’m going to fulfil our promise, Akechi,” he murmured. “I’m going to take down Shido. So you...”

“ _You make sure to come back to me.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! ;w; It was quite different from things I normally write - I've never really written a breakdown of this scale before. I just kind of wanted to write a grieving, emotional Ren. The anime does it a bit with him punching the shutter door (tbh I do not know what that things called so I apologise if I've been calling it something wrong throughout the fic) and looking like he's about to burst into tears, but I wanted to go into it a bit more. Someone he cares deeply about just dIED, the game writes him as too chill imo. I know he's a stoic blank-slate protagonist but y'know. But also I hc that in P5R the thing that keeps Ren going is his promise with Akechi for a rematch. He wholeheartedly throws himself into believing that Akechi will uphold their promise because if he doesn't believe in it he'll end up lost and depressed and the grief will hit him all over again tenfold.


End file.
